According to an analysis conducted by the publication based on government documents, at least 27,000 children had their parents arrested in the first seven months of 2025. During this period, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security deported an average of 1,400 parents per month. This figure is nearly twice as high as during the Joe Biden administration in 2024.
According to the data, among those detained are at least 12,000 parents of children who are U.S. citizens. In some cases, keeping families together has become even more difficult because parents and children are citizens of different countries.
The publication also presented the stories of several immigrant families. One of them is a woman from Haiti who came to the U.S. fleeing political violence. However, after being detained, she was kept thousands of kilometers away from her 13-month-old daughter. The woman said the baby required a special diet and breast milk, but the government refused to release her.
Human rights advocates describe this situation as a new crisis of family separation. In their view, the current situation has even surpassed the scale of the infamous "zero tolerance" policy during Trump's first presidential term.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, denied that families were deliberately separated. Agency representatives stated that parents are informed they may be deported together with their children.
